Final post-qualifying press conferences, Bristol

COMPLETION OF POST-QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCES


CHEVROLET/TEAM MONTE CARLO NOTES AND QUOTES
SHARPIE 500
BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY
ROUND 24 OF 36
NASCAR WINSTON CUP SERIES
FRIDAY, AUG. 23, 2002


"And who knows if they did put new pavement there if it not might tear up
again. Hopefully this time around..I don¹t think they had enough sealer up
there on it personally. Maybe they can just seal it up a little more and it
might fix itself."

"Not that his efforts were unacceptable; it¹s just what we had up there was
unacceptable. This is Winston Cup racing. Man, we¹ve got way too much
invested. There¹s just too many fans out there that want to come and watch a
good race for us to go some place and have pavement tearing up. I think
there¹s a lot of smart people out there who should know how to make sure
that that doesn¹t happen.  All I know there¹s race cars that were torn up
because of it. I got out in it one time and almost hit the wall. And it was
scary. If you stepped two inches outside of that grooveŠI don¹t know what
they¹re calling it, but I call it pavement that¹s tearing up and then it¹s
like being on ice. We don¹t need to have that happen. We don¹t need there to
be a caution every 15 laps so that they can sweep it up."

COMPETITIVELY, YOU¹VE LOST GROUND. ARE YOU EVALUATING HOW YOU¹RE DOING
THINGS? "We¹re not going to try to reinvent the wheel, because we¹re a
strong team. The thing I¹m most proud of is how well these guys have stuck
together and not started doubting themselves or pointing fingers. That¹s
usually the first thing that comes when the frustration level gets high and
you¹re not winning and you¹re a team that has won and has come off of
winning a championship. Maybe being in the top five in the points has
probably helped that along a little bit more. We know we need to be
performing better; we want to perform better. All we¹re trying to do is just
go to each race, perform at our best, do our best, work hard and evaluate it
when it¹s all over and figure out what we could have done better. The thing
is there¹s moments during those races where things go pretty good and then
there¹s moments when it kind of falls apart.  The moments when it¹s going
really good you¹re like OK, we¹re not really doing anything different for
that. And then all of a sudden it just starts to fall apart and we¹re not
really doing anything different then. You scratch your head a lot. And
that¹s what the frustrating part is, that you don¹t really know how to put
your finger on it. It¹s certainly been a little bit of a wake-up call for us
here lately, because of the performances that we¹ve had. The neat thing is
about this team is that usually motivates them and inspires them instead of
gets them down and allows them to fall apart."

TALK ABOUT HOW STARTING UP FRONT MIGHT HELP YOU WITH YOUR FIRST WIN AND
HAVING A CAR QUICK ENOUGH TO START UP FRONT: "I think starting up front is
good everywhere. It¹s a positive. It¹s good for the team, it¹s good for
track position, it¹s good for so many things. That doesn¹t guarantee
anything, it doesn¹t guarantee a win. You¹ve got to make that happen. This
next practice is going to be really important for us to get the balance
right. It¹s going to be darker tomorrow when we do race. You¹ve got to take
that into consideration. Sitting on the pole certainly doesn¹t give it to
us, but it gets us started in the right direction and maybe helps things
along a little bit. And this is Bristol. You can be up front or you can be
at the tail of the field and it doesn¹t mean that you¹re safe. We recognize
that too. Were just going to try to put a fast race car out there and try to
stay out of trouble.